Several of the poems in the anthology convey a sense of alienation; however An Unknown Girl by Moniza Alvi and Into Your Mind by Carol Ann Duffy are for me particularly clear in the way they describe such a feeling of not belonging.

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Belonging

    Several of the poems in the anthology convey a sense of alienation; however “An Unknown Girl” by Moniza Alvi and “Into Your Mind” by Carol Ann Duffy are for me particularly clear in the way they describe such a feeling of ‘not belonging’. In ‘An Unknown Girl’, the poet expresses how her culture roots of India are reawakened while an unknown girl is deftly hennaing her hand. In ‘In Your Mind’, the poet transports us from the boring England, whose language is ‘muffled by the rain’ in autumn, to the exciting and wonderful ‘other country’. In this essay, I will describe how the use of language, poet’s attitude, structure and form of the poems help the poets to articulate such a powerful feeling of alienation.

    Upon investigating the poems, we can see that both uses language in various ways to express their wistful sense of ‘not belonging’.  In ‘An Unknown Girl’, Alvi starts off by constructing a crowded and lively image of India with the ‘evening bazaar studded with neon’. She is part of such a delightful picture, but the existence of a local ‘unknown girl’ in the following line immediately creates a gap between the poet and the country she truly belongs to. Therefore Alvi uses repetition of the pattern of ‘In the evening... an unknown girl is hennaing my hand’ throughout the poem for three times throughout the poem to emphasise her search of identity and sense of belonging, while hinting that she is also unknown to the country. She seems to know none. She seems not to be part of India. She is alienated.

    However, we can see that she is really engaged to the country, using sensory language to create an energetic India, for examples , the ‘satin-peach knee’ of the girl, the  colourfully floating balloons, the curtain cloth and sofa cloth. These are all very colourful images and feelings of India that ‘canopy’ her, which shows the naturally intimate and inevitable relationship between India and herself. Alvi also frequently uses enjambment in the poem, separating lines to add suspense, strengthen her fast pace of thoughts, excitement of India and her longing of a sense of belonging. She uses a beautiful metaphor of ‘new brown veins’, which represent both the peacock tattoo and the assimilated culture of India deep into her roots. To Alvi, the tattoo is a symbol of India, when she states, ‘when India appears and reappears...’ which shows her longing of belonging to India.

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    In the same manner, the use of language in ‘In Your Mind’ is also very efficient and exquisite. It can be argued that the ‘you’ in the poem can be applied to anyone who is desperate for a bit of refreshment in order to escape from the boring reality. The use of second person makes readers more involved in the adventure of the persona. At the beginning, Duffy uses a rhetorical question, ‘is it anticipated or half-remembered?’ to bring ‘you’ immediately into the situation of the poem, with the English rain falling all afternoon. The power of imagination ...

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